Longmorn 43 Years Old Gordon & MacPhail Cask:909 55.4% 1968

Professionele reviews

Serge Valentin (91)

To say that this baby’s got quite a reputation would be an understatement. Not only in the flatlands, mind you… Colour: amber. Nose: the guy who’s broken the mould should be prosecuted for such a crime. Why isn’t Longmorn (and many other single malts) as good anymore as it was in those years? Sure, yeast types, woods, condensers, hurry, greed, capitalism… But there must be other reasons! Anyway, love this blend of the finer things from oak with one of the fruitiest distillates ever. That gave us some king of cake-y bonanza that’s just very hard to beat. Some liquid banana cake, really. With water: some gunpowder, some cigarette ashes, some cured ham. Opening a pack of beef jerky. Mouth (neat): some kind of Asian arrival, with Thai or Indonesian spices (rendang, kafir…), then punchy green fruits (green bananas?) and a biting green tannicity that would remind us of the strongest Chinese green teas. This tiger roars. With water: ah, there, mead, orange wine, pollen, petit manseng (the grapes they use in Jurançon, for example), figs that are about to ferment… Finish: long, rather all on dried fruits, figs first. A stone-y feeling in the aftertaste. Comments: it just couldn’t beat the utterly stellar SMWS – some stratospheric whisky, really – but this old G&M/Van Wees sure is flying extremely high.